Which Witch
by DeliriousMess
Summary: An AU where Clef teaches the girl with kitchen magic. Where there isn't the weight of the world on anyone's shoulders, just the weight of a dying lineage. Where everything's a happy apartment community with love, and jokes, and goodness. Very disjointed as of yet, but maybe some day it'll all be cohesive and make sense.
1. Beginnings

"There were so many of us, My Sky," That's how his mother's stories always started. His father would be nothing more than a specter in his doorframe, head bowed as he listened to his wife speak as if he were lost in a prayer that his son had yet to understand.

"There were so many." She'd sigh, "We were once a family."

She would tell him about the fires they'd have, the songs they would sing, how through thousands of miles and transcending generations, they were all connected.

Clef remembered closing his eyes and dreaming about those gatherings, that fire, he could almost hear the songs. But that was long ago, and there's very few of them left.

Or so he thought.

* * *

Clef shuffles nervously into the Shidou kitchen. Hikaru, the little red head he'd met at the park, with the magic coming off of her so bright he was amazed no one else saw it, just tugged on his hand harder. "C'mon, Mr. Clef! Satoru's been askin' to meet you!"


	2. A Blue Tin Kettle

How this AU started

In the apartment where he lives and teaches the three neighbor girls about what they are, there is a small kitchen.

There's hardly any counter space to do half of the things he instructs them on, and only one of them could work with him in it at a time. Umi, the more vocal of the three, always complains about not having enough room to work, and doesn't he know how hard it is to get into the fridge for a snack when he's putting away dishes?

Clef always sends her back to her incantations when she gets particularly…obtuse. Despite her initial complaining, she does have the clearest diction when it comes to her incantations of the three of them because of that practice.

Hikaru never bothered complaining about the size, always grinning and saying, "We'll make it work."

He always ruffles her hair at that, smiling at her. But her eyes would aways wonder to the stove. Specifically, to the kettle sitting on the stovetop. He knew that all three of the girls had their questions about him and about how he knows what he knows–but he knows that most of those questions get focused on that kettle.

Finally, one day, after they'd worked very hard, he sat them at his small table and brought out the kettle. He could see the spark in their eyes immediately–they were many things at this young age, but they were not yet subtle.

He set it gravely on the table in front of them and said, "This. Is a very important tea kettle."

They kept their eyes glued to the kettle, listening intently.

"It's a magic kettle."

He saw them tense for a moment, quickly sneaking glancing at each other before looking back at Clef and the kettle.

He tapped the top of it, "This was a kettle that my mother gave to me when I made my first potion. She looked at me and said, 'Listen, my Sky, what we do and what we are, takes a lot of energy. And tea is good to help your soul. Use this to help come back.'"

He leveled his gaze at the girls, hardly containing his smile at them, "Now you three have come a long way since your first potions, so I think you're owed a cup of tea from my magic kettle."

The girls took a collective breath and looked at each other again, all grinning at each other.

Very quietly, Fuu asked, "Are you sure?"

He smiled at her, "Of course. My mother would have loved you three."

All three of them smiled at that as Clef went to make them tea. He knew they would remember this, and he was glad that he'd given them something real about himself for them to know.

He was their teacher after all.


	3. Druxy: Rotten Inside

Fuu and Ferio talking about the dark side of her (and the others) abilities and how the dark almost claimed Emeraude.

"Emmy got Bad once," Ferio says to Fuu after she's gone through her final Rights, after she's received her talisman, after her Familiar found her, after Celf smiled at her and Umi and Hikaru over that small fire in the woods five miles out from his apartment and twenty miles out from the city. They're lying out in the grass in the space between Clef's building and the neighboring building in the complex. They can't really see the stars, not like they could the night of the Right, but they can pretend. Ferio's head is on her stomach and she makes it a point to keep her gaze on the stars as he speaks–this is not an easy subject for him.

Ferio doesn't say anything for a long time at first, and neither does Fuu. Until finally, quietly, Ferio says, "I used to hear her crying."

He swallows, "She used to cry and say there was something rotten in her."

Fuu can almost hear it in the silence of the night, in the crickets' song–Emeraude on the phone with Alcyone, sobbing, trying so hard not to scream to her, "I'm rotten! I'm rotten! I'm _rotten_!"

And Ferio sitting outside of her door, hearing her, and trying so hard not cry with his sister or wanting to go to comfort her, but being unable to do anything.

A car's tires squeal in the parking lot, pulling Fuu from her vision. There's another long pause before Ferio cleared his throat and continued, "It was after she'd been through her Rights," he says quietly now, as if he were imparting a secret to her, "Clef used to say how rare it was for that to happen–something about what the Rights were supposed to do–but it happened anyway. She doesn't talk about what happened, what it was that let the dark in–I think she's scared of it, of…of talking about it."

Something Clef had warned about when they were going through one of their lessons–she barely remembered what he'd been teaching them about–they'd ask him a question, but he kept giving vague answers until Umi yelled at him about not giving them anything concrete, he'd looked at them gravely and had said, "There are some things you don't talk about for fear of bringing it back."

"She got better," Ferio says quickly, as if he were trying to make an excuse for her, to garner forgiveness from Fuu, "Something–she still won't tell us what that was either–something brought her back. She's…she's okay now."

Fuu nods into the grass, and absently pets his head. She doesn't know what in her brought out her courage to do that–she and Ferio had been dancing around their feelings of mutual, early budding attraction to each other but they hadn't said or done anything about it. But she could feel him relax as her fingers moved through his hair, heard him sigh and melt a little more into grass under them.

"I can see it." Fuu says carefully to him, her words hitching in her throat. She feels him tense again but continues, "You know how some of us can identify each other because of energy and all that? Emeraude's is bright and warm, but there's a…like a bruise on it. There's this dark, soft spot in it that–"

She stops herself and tries to find the right words to get him to understand. It's always so hard to get someone outside of your world to understand.

"She guards it." She finally says, "Some days it's bigger than others, and she…she folds into herself to hide it. And…and other days it's like it's not there at all."

After a moment, she says, smiling at the stars as they look down on them, "On the bad days she's very careful around us–around you. But on the good days…On those days, she's so bright it's hard to look at her."

She moves her head slightly to try and catch Ferio's eye as she added, "It's like I know who she really is."


	4. Agelast: A Person Who Never Laughs

A Halloween chapter, following how they pay homage to those they've lost.

The girls have been antsy all week.

Clef had told them they wouldn't have a lesson that week until Saturday because it was going to be a Very Important day for them.

They knew they still had a few years until their Rites, so it wasn't that kind of Important, but they knew something was different.

Something was coming.

Something was going to happen.

And they were excited.

Their classmates were excited for a different reason; it was Halloween, after all, and there was candy to be had, pranks to be pulled, and scares to be experienced.

"What are you going to be for Halloween, Umi?" one of their classmates had asked.

Umi had smiled and just answered, "A witch."

No one understood why Hikaru and Fuu laughed.

When school finally let out on Friday, they rushed to Hikaru's house–hers was the closest to the part of town that Clef's apartment was at–and spent all night locked in Hikaru's room, laughing.

They weren't casting, they'd promised Clef they wouldn't, but their fingers itched with the urge of it. So who could blame them for just using it for little things–like making Hikaru's toys dance for them, or letting Hikari speak for ten minutes?

It wasn't casting, they reasoned, it just was.

The next day, they were up early to gather the things Clef had told them to bring–crow feathers, a few gems of their choice, their rain water jars, and their own laughter bottled–and left for his apartment as soon as breakfast was finished.

"Where are you three off to?" Kakeru had asked, yelling to them from the doorstep.

"Another world!" Hikaru had yelled back, to the laughter of the other two.

On the bus to Clef's apartment, they had huddled in the back of the bus, and watched the people come and go.

Hikaru was the one who noticed it first–She had gasped and nudged Fuu to look at the woman leaning against the window to their right, murmuring, "She has wings!"

Umi and Fuu both looked and, sure enough, sprouting from the woman's back were a pair of long, translucent wings that reminded them of a dragonfly's. Her skin was tinted blue, and a pair of pointed teeth jutted out from her lower jaw.

There were others that came and went; Fair Folk, Werefolk–all of them came and went and the girls couldn't help but stare.

When the others would notice–and it was hard not to notice–they would study the girls for a moment and, seeing whatever it was that identified them as Touched, would smile at them and wink.

The girls just grinned back.

They reached the building just before lunch, and Lafarga was at the entrance, waiting for them. They grinned at him and he just nodded and wished them a Happy Halloween.

Caldina was in the hall with Ascot, trying to teach him the Monster Mash, only to change it to the Time Warp when the girls arrived.

Umi immediately joined in, keeping up with Caldina expertly. Ascot stood with Fuu and Hikaru and watched, smiling bigger than they'd seen him.

"Happy Halloween," Ascot commented.

All four girls sang back, "Happy Halloween!"

Persea was standing in her doorway, a bowl of candy ready for the girls as they passed on their way to Clef. Hikaru grabbed an undignified handful, Fuu only took a couple of pieces, and Umi respectfully declined. Persea gave her a small gemstone instead, and Umi squealed in excitement.

Everyone was practically bouncing off the walls in excitement, and the girls didn't understand why.

Not yet anyway.

They knocked on Clef's door–a habit they had to be trained into, after Hikaru had brazenly charged in one day and was almost brained by a flying book that Clef had been using for a spell–and waited.

After only a moment, the door flew open and there was Clef, smiling at them.

Until this moment, the girls had _never_ seen Clef smile.

"Happy Halloween, girls!" He greeted enthusiastically. His hair was a mess, his clothes were a bit disheveled, and his eyes were bright in either excitement or mania, they had no way to know.

On any other day, they would've been confused and wary of his excitement, but not today.

Hikaru bounced into the apartment, followed by Fuu and Umi as all three replied, "Happy Halloween!"

They sat dutifully at the table, even as they fidgeted in their chairs, still feeling the charged energy of the entire complex, and waited for him to start the lesson.

They placed their materials on the table, expecting him to instruct them in what they would use the items for, but he only waved his hand at them dismissively, "Not yet, not yet, we're saving that for tonight."

The girls looked at each other in confusion, but put the items away. Clef showed them tricks and used his magic for similar things as they'd done last night in Hikaru's room. They showed him their own tricks–Hikaru and the fireworks she could shoot from her fingertips, Umi and the water figures she could make dance on the kitchen table, Fuu and the singing flowers–and he laughed.

They made Clef laugh.

They had _never_ seen Clef laugh before.

As the daylight faded, the others converged on Clef's apartment–Emeraude, Zagato, Lantis, Alcyone, Caldina, Persea, Ascot, Ferio, even Lafarga–and Clef kept grinning as they all talked and laughed and danced and casted.

And then, just as the sun started to disappear over the horizon, they all felt the change in the air. The laughter faded, and they all slowed and looked to Clef.

Clef was still grinning, but there was a knowing look in his eyes now as he pressed his palms together, then, very quietly, he said, "It's time."

The magic users in the room nodded–even the girls, though they didn't know what they were agreeing to–and gathered their coats and bags.

They were headed to the woods. The girls didn't know how they knew, but they did, and they knew that this was a sacred moment. Ferio and Lafarga trailed behind the group, Lafarga staying vigilant for something–he never said what he was always looking out for, but he always was. Ferio, still young and unsure of what he was meant to be to the rest of the group, stayed close to Lafarga, mimicking his vigilance, even though he was as lost about what he was looking out for as the girls.

None of them said a word as they walked for what seemed like forever until they finally reached a clearing. The older members of the party fanned out to take their positions around the perimeter of the field, the girls being pointed along by Emeraude's smiling and gesturing but not saying a word, as Clef stood in the center. In an instant, a fire was roaring in front of him. Those around the field sat, and waited.

Clef spoke.

"I have been alive for longer than I would wish on anyone." He began, staring into the fire, "I have seen our kind hunted, I have seen our kind tortured, I have seen us killed."

Fuu, Persea, Ascot, and Emeraude lowered their heads in reverence for those lost before them. Umi, Caldina, and Lantis got a determined set in their jaws, angry at the loss, though Umi was too young to feel it as the others did. Hikaru, Zagato, and Alcyone stared into the fire with Clef, seeing what Clef had seen in the flames.

"I had lost hope that any of us would find one another again, or that we would be safe if we did." Clef continued, before turning his eyes from the flames to smile at the group around him, "But here you are. On one of our most holy nights. Ready to celebrate in the Old Ways–ways I haven't seen in decades. So tonight, for our lost, for our found, and for our future–let us celebrate."

The people who lived outside the forest would tell each other about the lights and the sounds that came from the forest that night, but none of them would know what it was about. Even as a trail of fifteen people wondered out, all grinning and laughing together.


End file.
